Henry Wheeler DeForest (October 29, 1855 – 1938) was an American railroad executive, capitalist and industrialist.
Early life
DeForest was born in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
on October 29, 1855. He was a son of Henry Grant DeForest and Julia Mary (
née
A birth name is the name of a person given upon birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name, or the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a birth certificate or birth re ...
Weeks) DeForest. Among his siblings was older brothers
Lockwood DeForest, a painter and interior designer,
and
Robert Weeks DeForest, a lawyer, financier, and philanthropist.
DeForest paternal grandfather was Lockwood DeForest, a prominent
South Street merchant and direct descendant of
Jessé de Forest Jessé de Forest (1576 – October 22, 1624) was the leader of a group of Walloon Huguenots who fled Europe due to religious persecutions. They emigrated to the New World, where he planned to found New-Amsterdam, which is currently New York Ci ...
, of
French Huguenot
The Huguenots ( , also , ) were a religious group of French Protestants who held to the Reformed, or Calvinist, tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, the Genevan burgomaster Bez ...
ancestry, whose
Dutch West India Company
The Dutch West India Company ( nl, Geoctrooieerde Westindische Compagnie, ''WIC'' or ''GWC''; ; en, Chartered West India Company) was a chartered company of Dutch merchants as well as foreign investors. Among its founders was Willem Usselincx ( ...
helped to settle
New Amsterdam
New Amsterdam ( nl, Nieuw Amsterdam, or ) was a 17th-century Dutch settlement established at the southern tip of Manhattan Island that served as the seat of the colonial government in New Netherland. The initial trading ''factory'' gave rise ...
. Through his mother, he was distantly related to
Frederic Church
Frederic Edwin Church (May 4, 1826 – April 7, 1900) was an American landscape painter born in Hartford, Connecticut. He was a central figure in the Hudson River School of American landscape painters, best known for painting large landscapes, ...
, the
Hudson River
The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between N ...
landscapist, and his maternal grandfather was
Robert Doughty Weeks, the first President of the
New York Stock Exchange
The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE, nicknamed "The Big Board") is an American stock exchange in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed c ...
.
He was a graduate of
Williston Seminary
Williston Northampton School (simply referred to as Williston) is a private, co-educational, day and boarding college-preparatory school in Easthampton, Massachusetts, United States. It was established in 1841.
History
Williston Seminary was ...
in
Easthampton, Massachusetts
Easthampton is a city in Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States. The city is on the southeastern edge of the Pioneer Valley near the five colleges in the college towns of Northampton and Amherst. The population was 16,211 at the 2020 c ...
,
Yale University
Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...
in 1876, and
Columbia Law School
Columbia Law School (Columbia Law or CLS) is the law school of Columbia University, a private Ivy League university in New York City. Columbia Law is widely regarded as one of the most prestigious law schools in the world and has always ranked i ...
in 1878.
Career
After being
admitted to the bar
An admission to practice law is acquired when a lawyer receives a license to practice law. In jurisdictions with two types of lawyer, as with barristers and solicitors, barristers must gain admission to the bar whereas for solicitors there are dist ...
in 1878, he began practicing law with his father, brother, and uncle in New York. When that firm was dissolved in 1893, DeForest and his brother founded the firm known as DeForest Brothers. From 1925 to 1928, he was chair of the
executive committee
A committee or commission is a body of one or more persons subordinate to a deliberative assembly. A committee is not itself considered to be a form of assembly. Usually, the assembly sends matters into a committee as a way to explore them more ...
of the
Southern Pacific Railroad
The Southern Pacific (or Espee from the railroad initials- SP) was an American Class I railroad network that existed from 1865 to 1996 and operated largely in the Western United States. The system was operated by various companies under the ...
, and chairman of its board of directors from 1929 to 1932.
He assisted
E.H. Harriman in the recapitalization of the
Wells Fargo Express Company, and was a longtime director of the
Equitable Life Assurance Company. With
Elihu Root
Elihu Root (; February 15, 1845February 7, 1937) was an American lawyer, Republican politician, and statesman who served as Secretary of State and Secretary of War in the early twentieth century. He also served as United States Senator from N ...
, he was the trustee of the majority of the Equitable's capital stock.
He also served as president of the
New York Botanical Garden
The New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) is a botanical garden at Bronx Park in the Bronx, New York City. Established in 1891, it is located on a site that contains a landscape with over one million living plants; the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, ...
from January 1928 to November 1937.
Personal life
On August 22, 1898, DeForest was married to Julia Gilman Noyes (1875–1967) in
St. Paul, Minnesota. Julia was the daughter of
Emily Hoffman
Emily Key Hoffman, known upon her marriage as Mrs. F. Y. Dalziel, (1876 – September 12, 1927) was an American socialite, heiress, dancer, and Big-game hunting, big-game hunter. A prominent debutante of the Gilded Age, she was a leading figure in ...
(née Gilman) Noyes and Charles Phelps Noyes, a millionaire druggist.
Together, they resided at 63
East 79th Street in New York, Nethermuir in
Cold Spring Harbor (the former home of Chinese merchant Oliver Kimball Gordon),
and were the parents of:
* Julia Mary DeForest (1899–1988), who married Beverley Duer (1893–1961).
* Henry Wheeler DeForest Jr. (1901–1913), who died of a
brain tumor
A brain tumor occurs when abnormal cells form within the brain. There are two main types of tumors: malignant tumors and benign (non-cancerous) tumors. These can be further classified as primary tumors, which start within the brain, and seconda ...
in 1913.
* Charles Noyes DeForest (1905–1929), a Yale graduate who died in
Palermo, Italy
Palermo ( , ; scn, Palermu , locally also or ) is a city in southern Italy, the capital (political), capital of both the autonomous area, autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan ...
during a trip around the world.
* Alice Delano DeForest (1908–1988), who married Francis Minturn Sedgwick (1904–1967), son of
Henry Dwight Sedgwick
Henry Dwight Sedgwick III (September 24, 1861 – January 5, 1957) was an American lawyer and author.
Early life
Sedgwick was born in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, the second of five children born to Henry Dwight Sedgwick II (1824–190 ...
, in 1929.
DeForest died at his county home, Nethermuir, in Cold Spring Harbor on 1938.
He was buried at Memorial Cemetery of Saint John's Church in
Laurel Hollow, New York
Laurel Hollow is a village in the Town of Oyster Bay in Nassau County, on the North Shore of Long Island, in New York, United States. The population was 1,952 at the 2010 census. According to Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Laurel Hollow was the eighth ...
on
Long Island
Long Island is a densely populated island in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, part of the New York metropolitan area. With over 8 million people, Long Island is the most populous island in the United Sta ...
.
Descendants
Through his daughter Alice, he is the grandfather of
Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore the relationsh ...
muse
Edie Sedgwick
Edith Minturn Sedgwick Post (April 20, 1943 – November 16, 1971) was an American actress and fashion model, known for being one of Andy Warhol's superstars.Watson, Steven (2003), "Factory Made: Warhol and the Sixties" Pantheon Books, pp. 210& ...
.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Deforest, Henry
1855 births
1938 deaths
Williston Northampton School alumni
Yale University alumni
Columbia Law School alumni
20th-century American railroad executives
Southern Pacific Railroad people
19th-century American businesspeople